Domina (Paul Doherty Historical Mysteries) (24 page)

‘What can the bitch do?’ she taunted. ‘Attack me? Attack the grandson of Germanicus? Rome would not tolerate it. It’s time we went to work, Parmenon.’

The invitations to Claudius and his freedmen Narcissus and Pallas increased, but at these evenings Agrippina began to look anxious and troubled, refusing to tell Claudius the reason. At last she produced Styges, an Egyptian soothsayer, a mountebank who could convince even prudent men that he had the gift of seeing the future. At first Agrippina pretended to be reluctant to let her self-styled seer inform the Emperor of what he had divined. Only when Claudius cleared the chamber and took the most solemn oaths, did Styges reveal that he had dreamed the husband of Messalina was in great danger.

‘Not Messalina herself?’ Claudius asked.

‘No, Excellency, her husband.’

‘But, but . . .’ Claudius stammered. ‘What can be done? What shall I do?’

Agrippina reminded Claudius of the oath he had taken not to tell anyone of the seer’s prophecy. The Emperor, now hooked like the fish he was, asked Agrippina for advice.

‘At the moment the danger is some time off,’ Domina replied. ‘But, Excellency, you must plan how to deal with it. If Messalina . . .’ She let her words hang in the air.

‘If Messalina what?’ Claudius demanded.

‘If Messalina could be encouraged to take another husband, just for a while . . .’

Claudius blinked and glanced at me. ‘Wh- wha- what do you think, Parmenon?’

I stared at my mistress, who was acting to the full her role as concerned Roman matron. She held my gaze, and I glimpsed the laughter in her eyes.

‘The most important thing, your Excellency,’ I insisted, ‘is the health and safety of your sacred person. That’s why you must keep this warning to yourself. If it became public knowledge . . .’

Claudius bit his lip.

‘Think of it this way, your Excellency,’ I continued, ‘danger threatens on all sides, but that is part of your sacred duty. Didn’t the divine Caesar, the noble Augustus, and all the great heroes of Rome have to face danger?’

Claudius nodded. Oh, in many ways he was such a great fool!

‘What Domina Agrippina wishes to ensure,’ I explained smoothly, ‘is that there is protection between you and that danger.’

Claudius poked me sharply in the chest. ‘You could become Messalina’s husband for a while, but no bed sport, mind you.’ He threw his head back and bellowed with laughter at the look of consternation on my face.

‘I was only joking,’ he wheezed. ‘Messalina would never have anything to do with someone who was not only of inferior rank but ugly with it!’

I smiled in acknowledgement of his wit.

Once the Emperor had gone, Agrippina made me share her couch. She embraced and kissed me on the lips and licked my ear.

‘Clever boy, Parmenon,’ she whispered. ‘We have the rod, we have the line, the fish is near. All we need to do is choose the bait.’

Agrippina now dug deep into her treasury and started to throw the most lavish of parties. Invitations were extended to every member of the high society of Rome although Claudius and Messalina were quietly ignored. Agrippina’s chefs became the toast of the city, serving dishes such as ostrich brains and peas mixed with gold, or lentils on a bed of precious stones, so the guests were both well-fed and well-rewarded. Plump chickens, sows’ udders, sucking pig, hot boiled goose, stuffed hare, venison, bream and the tastiest oysters fresh from the dredge were all on offer. Troupes of poets, musicians, dancers and entertainers were hired. Agrippina was the most charming of hostesses, flirting and dallying with all the most eligible bachelors until she found her prey: Gaius Silius, probably the handsomest man I have ever met. He had the looks, body and deportment of a Greek god, with a brain as thick and as dead as a statue. Agrippina acted the role of the infatuated maiden, lavishing attention and gifts on him, and pretending to be distraught when he was absent. Their affair became the talk of Rome and attracted the attention of Messalina, who had her own plans for young Silius. A romantic tug of war took place which was won by Messalina. She and the young bachelor became utterly infatuated with each other, united not only in lust but a desire to mock and shame Agrippina in the eyes of others.

The lavish banquets ceased and Agrippina became more reclusive. Claudius and his freedmen were now invited to little private supper parties where Agrippina and the Emperor could converse closely together. Claudius was full of anger about his wife’s conduct, but Agrippina quietly reminded Claudius of Styges’s prophecy, gently coaxing Claudius to let the adulterous pair have their heads. The Emperor submitted and, when Messalina’s infatuation with Silius only deepened, Claudius’s powerful ministers, Narcissus and Pallas, entered the game.

Claudius was persuaded to go to Ostia to make sacrifice, and whilst he was away, Agrippina moved into the imperial quarters as the guest of Pallas. At last Agrippina was able to drop her mask and invited Narcissus, Pallas and myself to a secret meeting.

‘This is truly ridiculous,’ Agrippina began. ‘The Emperor, my Uncle Claudius, is being made a cuckold, a public laughing stock.’

Of course, she made no reference to her own involvement in this affair or the way she’d persuaded Claudius to turn a blind eye to what the rest of Rome was talking of. Pallas and Narcissus needed little encouragement: they were tired of Messalina, fearful of her terrible rages. If the opportunity presented itself, they were both prepared to strike speedily and ruthlessly.

‘I have heard rumours,’ Agrippina said. ‘That Messalina and Silius intend to marry.’

Narcissus and Pallas cried out in disbelief.

‘It is true,’ Agrippina insisted. ‘They are going to hold their own Bacchanalian festival and celebrate a marriage both unlawful and impious.’

After intense discussion, it was agreed that, if such a ceremony took place, Claudius should immediately confront his wife. Messengers were sent speeding off to Ostia, beseeching Claudius to return, and Agrippina and the freedmen met him in the Praetorian camp outside the city. They produced witnesses who described in every detail Messalina’s affair with Silius, their proposed bigamous marriage and a litany of previous infidelities. Claudius, trembling, at first panicked.

‘Am I still Emperor?’ he demanded of Narcissus and Agrippina. ‘Will Silius become Emperor in my place?’

Agrippina calmed him down and advised him precisely what to do.

The information Agrippina had gathered about Messalina’s activities, proved to be astonishingly accurate. Messalina and Silius, their brains turned by arrogance and lust, performed a marriage ceremony in the palace grounds, acting out the rituals of a grape harvest. Messalina and her female friends were garbed in animal skins, as if they were Maenads, whilst Silius and his cronies were dressed as satyrs. Frenzied in their drunkenness, they threw all constraints aside: men and women made love to each other in the shade of trees in wine-induced orgies, three or four men taking one woman, their performance watched and cheered by the others. Agrippina’s spies reported back to the Praetorian camp, and, by late afternoon, Claudius had recovered both his wit and his courage.

Helped on by Agrippina, rumours of the Bacchanalian orgy, with particular emphasis on Messalina’s conduct, spread amongst the guards. Outraged tribunes demanded an audience with the Emperor, insisting that the illicit celebrations be stopped and the participants ruthlessly punished. Claudius, hectored by Agrippina, quietly agreed. Soldiers were despatched into the palace grounds, bringing the revelry to an abrupt end as both Satyrs and Maenads fled for their lives.

The guards hunted the revellers through the trees and into the streets. Some were executed immediately, others were loaded with chains and taken off to prison. As the wine and opiates wore off, Messalina panicked and fled to the house of the Chief Vestal Virgin, begging her to plead with the Emperor. The priestess refused. The Empress of Rome, the beautiful Messalina, still dressed as a Maenad with fading garlands round her neck, was reduced to running from one end of the city to the other, vainly imploring former friends for help. No sympathy was shown and she tried to leave Rome in a cart used for removing garden rocks.

At the Praetorian camp Claudius was wavering. Agrippina whispered hoarsely to me that if the Emperor changed his mind we would all have to flee from Messalina’s undoubted fury. She conferred quickly with Narcissus and Pallas but was openly alarmed when a guards officer announced that the Empress had appeared at the camp gates, an arm round each of her children, Britannicus and Octavia. The guards let her in and Messalina threw herself on the Emperor’s mercy. I lurked in a corner of the imperial pavilion and saw that Messalina was using all her beauty, charm and eloquence to gain a hearing.

The Chief Vestal Virgin arrived, pricked by conscience, to argue that a wife should not be executed unheard. Narcissus and Pallas intervened, rudely telling the Vestal to return to her religious duties. The old woman, frightened, mumbled an apology and withdrew. Narcissus now attacked Messalina, saying she was unfit to be a mother and ordering Britannicus and Octavia to be taken away from her. He crouched and whispered in the Emperor’s ear that Messalina had effectively divorced him by her impious marriage to Silius. Then, his voice rising, he started on a long list of Messalina’s former lovers. Claudius could do nothing but cry, shake his head and moan loudly.

Messalina shouted at Narcissus to produce proof. The Emperor glanced expectantly at the freedman who was unable to answer until Agrippina decisively intervened. She hastily wrote a short note and passed it to me. I read it quickly then handed it to Narcissus. His podgy face, red with embarrassment, eased into a smile, and he bent down again and whispered in the Emperor’s ear. Agrippina had given him all the proof he would need.

‘We will go to Silius’s house,’ Claudius declared, lurching to his feet. ‘And seek the necessary evidence.’

Once we’d arrived at Silius’s house, Narcissus, prompted by Agrippina’s note, pointed out all the items from the imperial palace, gifts from the Empress to her lover, that were crammed into every available corner. Claudius was a greedy, acquisitive man, and when he saw the statuettes, vases, precious cloths and other items brought out and laid at his feet, he issued orders for the arrest of Silius and all his companions and returned to the camp. Once there a hasty platform was erected and the captives brought in. Unluckily for Messalina, they did not challenge the accusations but simply asked for a speedy death. One by one they were hustled from the platform to be decapitated by guards. They all died bravely except the actor Mnester, who begged for his life.

‘Others,’ he whined, ‘have sinned for money or ambition; I was simply compelled to.’

‘Are we to stand here and listen to this rubbish?’ Narcissus barked. He pointed to the execution grounds now strewn with bleeding, decapitated corpses. ‘Others have died, why spare an actor?’

And Mnester went under the sword.

Once the executions were finished, Claudius insisted on being taken back to the palace, where he ate and drank and grew maudlin over Messalina.

‘I’ll see her tomorrow,’ he declared tearfully. ‘I’ll listen to her explanation.’ He became more and more befuddled, his anger cooling, his lust for Messalina resurfacing.

Pallas reported to Agrippina that Claudius had started to refer to Messalina as ‘that poor woman’.

‘She cannot live till morning,’ Agrippina declared. ‘Where is she now?’

‘She has fled to the gardens of Lucullus.’

‘Then let her die there. Parmenon,’ Agrippina ordered. ‘Go and see her. Tell her the Emperor’s heart has not changed. Pallas, she must be dead by nightfall.’

Reluctantly I left. No, that’s a lie, I wasn’t reluctant: if Messalina survived, she’d claw her way back into Claudius’s affections and both my head and that of my mistress would roll. Whether I liked it or not I was in the amphitheatre facing a fight to the death. Our opponent was down and I could almost hear the roar of the crowd, ‘
Hoc Habet
!
Hoc Habet
! Let her have it!’

Messalina was sheltering in an olive grove, prostrate on the ground, with her mother kneeling beside her. The former Empress glanced up hopefully, but when she saw me her lip curled.

‘So, Agrippina’s shadow has arrived,’ she mocked.

I knelt down beside her. Even at this moment, Messalina was incredibly beautiful: the gorgeous ringlets framing her exquisitely shaped face, those strange eyes that seemed to shift in colour, lips like a full red rose and skin as white as the purest milk. She was still dressed in her Bacchanalian costume, her body coated with the most expensive perfume, her face streaked black where the tears had spread the kohl.

‘What have you come for?’ she whispered, sitting up.

‘You know why he’s here!’ her mother snapped.

This tall, grey-haired, severe woman had little love for her daughter, but at least she had the courage to attend her during her last hours.

‘What’s your name?’ Messalina smiled through her tears. ‘Parmenon, isn’t it? Tell me one thing, Parmenon, is Domina Agrippina in the palace?’

‘She is!’

‘My mistake,’ she sighed. ‘I should have taken her head years ago. It’s finished, isn’t it, Parmenon?’

‘It is,’ I replied. ‘All that remains is an honourable death.’

‘Not here,’ Messalina declared.

She grasped my hand, got to her feet and pointed to a small garden pavilion deep in the trees. Gripping my arm she hurried across, her mother following. Inside, the pavilion smelt of damp wood and leaves, but she must have been there before as a lamp was burning, cushions and blankets were strewn on the floor, and a roll of parchment and a tray of pens and ink lay on a table. Messalina ordered her mother to close the door and pull the bolts across; even as she did so, we heard the tramp of feet followed by a pounding on the door. Messalina crouched on the floor, drawing the blankets around her, whimpering like a puppy. I felt sorry for her at that moment but I had no hope to offer her. The door was forced, and a Praetorian officer with one of Pallas’s henchmen, Evodus, stepped into the darkened room.